Hilltop village of Tal Saman freed from Daesh: Video

An alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters — the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces — has seized the strategic hilltop village of Tal Saman from the Daesh terrorist group in Syria.

Tal Saman, located 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Daesh’s de facto Syrian capital of Raqqah, was encircled by the SDF forces on Friday and was freed from the Daesh terrorists after about a day of heavy fighting inside the village.

The US-backed alliance, which launched an offensive to retake Raqqah on November 5, faced a stiff resistance by the terrorists in Tal Saman because the village is on a hill that offers a view of surrounding rocky desert terrain and villages near the Raqqah stronghold, which has been under Daesh control since 2014.

According to Nasser Hajj Mansur, an adviser to the SDF general command, the US-led coalition had supplied the alliance with “arms, equipment, troop transport, armor and ammunition.”

Meanwhile, the Syrian army, backed by Russian air cover, is pushing ahead with its operation to take full control of the city of Aleppo. The Syrian army has set up a number of humanitarian corridors for people to quit Aleppo. However, terrorists are said to be preventing civilians from leaving the city in a bid to use them as human shields. The Takfiri elements have also mined the streets leading to the exit routes and threatened to kill anyone who defies their order.

Aleppo has been divided since 2012 between government forces in the west and the militants in the east.

Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies. Backed by Russian air cover, the Syrian military is engaged in an operation to rid the country of Daesh and other terrorist groups.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura have put the death toll from the conflict at more than 300,000 and 400,000, respectively. This is while the UN has stopped its official casualty count in the Arab country, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.